NE v EN

In determining children’s living arrangements, the court must focus on welfare, stability and safety, including evidenced risks arising from a parent’s past behaviour. The assessment is evaluative rather than a painstaking mathematical balance.

Where contact is beneficial but presents identifiable risks, the court may impose proportionate safeguards. These may include supported, non-overnight contact pending completion of an appropriate course, followed by review where there is evidence of progress.

The father applied under the inherent jurisdiction for the summary return of two children from country C, which was not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention. The mother accepted the children’s habitual residence and the absence of consent to their removal. She agreed to return them by 1 August 2025.

The remaining dispute concerned the children’s living arrangements on return. The father sought equal shared care. The mother proposed that the children live with her and spend supported daytime contact with the father on alternate weekends. The central issues were residence, frequency, support and duration of contact.

1. Residence. The court applied the welfare factors in section 1(3) of the Children Act. The children had lived principally with the mother since the parties separated. The father’s past convictions created risk factors, aggravated by the expected arrival of another child. The children required stability and safety. They were therefore to live with the mother on return.
2. Contact. The court accepted that the children would benefit from an ongoing relationship with the father, but its task was to manage risk while promoting that relationship. Alternate-weekend contact was appropriate. The father’s new wife was accepted as the supporter, with liberty for the parties to agree another person in writing.
3. Contact was not to be overnight until completion of the Domestic Abuse Perpetrators course. After approximately six months, the parties were to review whether overnight and holiday contact, and continued support, were appropriate, having regard to a broadly positive course report and the experience of contact.
4. If agreement could not be reached, the restrictive provisions would continue, subject to either party applying to the local family court. The children’s return was agreed rather than determined after a contested summary-return issue.